User talk:Mark Wilden
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome, welkom Welcome to the Vim Tips wiki! We hope you can help improve the articles by fixing typos, adding comments (at the bottom of each tip page), rewriting tips, joining in discussions, or making any other improvements. Be sure to visit the [[Project:Community Portal|'community portal']] for information about our site, with links to how to pages. Keep an eye on the page, where all edits and their authors (anonymous or signed-in) are listed. Bookmark it, maybe. If you want to get involved, check out our Vim Tips Wiki:Policy. We'd like you to join the [http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/vim-l mailing list]. Enjoy! Welcome Hi Mark. Thanks for joining in as we try to polish 1250 tips! For your info, after thinking about your suggestion to rename the mapping "tutorial" tip, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. I didn't realize the effort would be anything other than deleting one word. Sorry, but the tip's author (Yegappan) has made many significant Vim contributions (I use two of his plugins), In other words, you don't want to annoy him. That's reasonable. and given the hundreds of really dodgy tips (and dubious titles) that we have, I don't see the point in making a minor improvement by renaming Yegappan's tips. The only point would be to take less time than it did to explain your decision, and simply fix it to make it correct (which I don't think you dispute). Don't get me wrong - I think this is very small potatoes, indeed. My only thought was to avoid wasting people's time who are actually looking for a tutorial. It's similar to another change I suggested where a so-called FAQ was simply documentation written as a series of questions and answers. No biggie - unless you're actually looking for a FAQ. I'm a programmer (and a pretty nitpicking programmer, at that). In our work, our language has to be very precise. That's why imprecision and incorrectness in The Real World is such a pet peeve. It's even more galling in a Wiki, where (in theory) we are allowed to fix such imprecision. I'm not a Vim expert, but I do know the difference between a tutorial and a long article covering all aspects of a subject. Making such distinctions and correcting them is really the only (very small) way I can contribute, currently. Given your comments, I obviously won't be expending that effort in the future. All that said, this is a tiny, tiny matter compared to the great usefulness of this resource, and yours and others work on it! Mark Wilden 14:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC) ---- Hey, Mark. Don't get discouraged! We need all the help we can get. Your suggestion was at its heart a good one, it was just decided that perhaps it wasn't the best idea at this time. Feel free to make little corrections such as you suggest in the text of tips as you see fit. The only reason (I think) that this particular suggestion caused such consternation was that it was a suggestion to rename a page – arguably a much more significant change than simple wording! People may have created bookmarks or links to this page, it will show up in the "top content" box of the wiki with the old title...all sorts of headaches could be caused! In general, though, we try to encourage a "be bold" philosophy here on the wiki. If you see a change that needs making, go ahead and do it! The only real exception to the rule would be to move a page, or delete it (which only admins can do so far as I know). Other than that, your improvement can be reverted or improved upon in turn. So again, we don't want to chase you away! Please continue making whatever little changes you see fit...that's how everybody starts. We have so many tips in very bad need of simple re-wording or even wholesale re-writing that we need help from everyone that feels the itch. --Fritzophrenic 19:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC) ---- Hi Mark. Just to clarify, mine is but one voice here. I often spend more time doing things than others (much of the time fiddling with my bot that does various maintenance things), but on the wiki we are all equal. I have found working on the wiki (and particularly, doing a bit of lurking on Wikipedia) has been quite an eye opener. There really are a lot of points-of-view out there. Originally, I had to argue with people for an hour just to delete some junk comments from tips. Of course I could have simply deleted the comments, but I felt it better to try and accommodate the alternative views as best I could. So please don't let my opinions stand in your way. If you want to rename the three mapping tips, please investigate what would be required (it looks like at least a few words in each tip would need to be changed), and you would have to decide on a good alternative title. Then just use the 'move' tab (and follow its advice to check "what links here"). As a courtesy, you might discuss it with the author first. As you say, it's not a big deal, but I would prefer to work on other things. --JohnBeckett 02:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC) ---- Thanks to both of you for your comments. Again, I have a great deal of respect for people who enjoy increasing and organizing the world's knowledge. I'm a big fan of Ward Cunningham, and I pass by Wikia every day. Maybe I'll have another crack at this sometime.:) Mark Wilden 03:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)